


Taking Chances

by Mirrored_Illusions



Series: Attempts at Friendship [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: 2020 August Fic-A-Day, Crossover, F/M, Minor Angel/Buffy Summers, Minor Daniel Jackson/Buffy Summers, Minor Kensi Blye/Marty Deeks, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s07e22 Chosen, Post-Episode: s09e07 The Silo, Season/Series 09, Season/Series 10, Stealth Crossover, Twisting The Hellmouth Fic-a-Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:00:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25657054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirrored_Illusions/pseuds/Mirrored_Illusions
Summary: Reconnecting with someone you kinda, sorta knew as a teenager can be difficult. When you add secret organizations and covert operations it's even worse.
Series: Attempts at Friendship [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1464736
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15
Collections: TwistedShorts





	1. Kensi

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: BtVS belongs to Joss Whedon and NCIS LA to someone who definitely isn't yours truly.
> 
> A/N: I'm exhausted and my brain is fried from work so this is blah. 
> 
> Written for Day 01 of the 2020 August Fic-A-Day.

It was exactly six months since her old school friend had issued a kind of ultimatum; contact her within six months or the number Kensi had for her would no longer work. The phone in her hand mocked her, all bright lights and nearly instant communication through text or direct contact through the phone line.  
  
The name 'Buffy Summers (IDC)' was written in black with a tiny picture of the woman at 15 above it. It was one of the few pictures she had of her. It was part of a group picture with herself and three other girls, but she had cropped it so only Buffy's head was visible.  
  
Back then they had been quasi-aquaintances when Buffy had identified more as a rich cheerleader and Kensi had been the tomboy/military brat transfer student. Then Kensi's father had been killed and all thoughts of the spoiled airhead and her friends had fled her mind and she had dropped out of school and lost her way for a while.  
  
Years later she had become a federal agent working for NCIS, and the former airhead was some kind of security expert working for some mysterious organization simply known as the IDC. Most information about it was classified, the files of the people involved were at least partially redacted, and no one was willing to share any information about who they were and what they specialized in. The second-to-last time she'd seen Buffy, the woman had handed her a cease-and-desist to make NCIS stop trying to dig up information.  
  
That in itself was informative. It meant the organization had power or were connected to powerful people, but other than forcing NCIS OSP to stop looking for information they hadn't done anything. There were some vague rumors about them, mainly about them being merciless, dominant and influential in their field, but the word had been that it was under new, much fairer management now.  
  
Buffy hadn't done anything other than try to reconnect with her, and she'd been the unfortunate messenger of the C&D, but her team had reacted with suspicion even before that. Deeks in particular had taken offense. Given what they did it was a natural response, but maybe it had been too harsh.  
  
Her boys had tried to intimidate the petite woman when they last met and they had failed. Truthfully, she had seemed amused by it, at least initially, but there had to have been something going on in her life that caused her to just give up on her attempt to reconnect. As if it took much more effort than she was willing to put into it. She had risen abruptly, said a few parting words, and left. Her ability to just melt into the crowd was enviable.  
  
Her team's latest case had involved a secret group within the military known as the Patton Group. They were a group that wanted to end all Muslims by launching nuclear missiles against cities like Mecca and Tehran. They had almost succeeded, too. Kensi looked at the name in her phone's address book again, from what little she knew or suspected about the IDC it meant Buffy had seen terrible things. Maybe she'd even been involved in some way.  
  
Cat, Mindy, Mandy, Tiffany, and Tiffany were her best friends outside of the team, but they couldn't relate to her work. There was a chance Buffy might be able to do that. Maybe. But Kensi's work was classified and Buffy's work appeared to be even more so, so any conversations would have to be vague and short on details.  
  
For some reason, she couldn't explain, she had made alarms on her phone to remind her about Buffy and what she'd said. It had caused her phone to beep at her once a month and ask her if she wanted to contact Buffy. Up until today, the answer had been 'no'.  
  
Making up her mind, she touched the small speak bubble and began typing a short message.  
  
_Text or call me next time you're in L.A. Let's see if we can give this one more attempt, just you and me._  
  
It was inadequate, but what did you tell someone in a situation like theirs? Either they managed to work it out or they didn't. She would go alone this time, to see if there was something for them to build a friendship on. 


	2. Buffy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: BtVS: Post-Chosen & NCIS: LA: S09.  
> Disclaimer: The Buffyverse belongs to Joss Whedon and the NCIS 'verse belongs to rich people with expensive lawyers.  
> Author's Note: Written for Day 03 of the 2020 August Fic-A-Day.

Six weeks after Buffy had received a text message from her former classmate/charity case they still hadn't managed to coordinate their schedules enough to meet up. If Buffy was available and either in LA or capable of getting there within a sensible timeframe, then Kensi was busy with a case or she had pre-made plans of some other kind. If Kensi was available, then Buffy was either busy hunting vampires or demons, dealing with the increasing drama within the IDC, or entirely out of contact.  
  
Kensi had to bail twice before even getting to their rendevous-point, leaving Buffy to either laze around on the beach or go shopping. Buffy had gotten three emergency calls from local Mini-Slayers in need of help, so she had to bail at the last minute. Once she'd gotten caught up in patrolling with Angel and making-out in between staking vamps. Texting Kensi the next morning had been a little embarrassing, especially since she had blamed 'work commitments' for forgetting their late dinner plans.  
  
This time, it was four minutes until their agreed-upon time to meet. Neither of them had tried to contact the other to cancel their latest attempt so she had bought a coffee and was waiting on a park bench. Two minutes later she heard a set of footsteps approaching from behind her, and she turned half-way to be greeted by the sight of the federal agent she had been expecting. Even better, the woman was alone. Her team wasn't there, not out in the open and not hiding in the shrubbery or anywhere else. Buffy smiled in welcome.  
  
"I wasn't expecting you to show up without someone from your team."  
  
Kensi hesitated for a heartbeat, "They don't know we're in contact. They believe our last meeting made you give up on me, and that I'm not interested in being friends with you."  
  
"So why are you here, why have kept trying to make it happen?"  
  
She sat down on the bench with her coffee. "I don't know. Maybe I want proof that not everyone we attended Hemery with has cotton candy for a brain." Buffy gave her an amused look. "Don't look at me like that, you know most of them are either trophy wives, divorced so their husband can marry a trophy wife, addicts, socialites, or dead."   
  
"True. Our classmates are not the brain trust they were hoping to become. And still, they look down on me. And I have a good, well-paying job unlike most of them."  
  
When she contacted Kimberly Hannah, her former best friend at Hemery High, she was quickly dismissed. Or rather, Kimberly spent ten minutes bragging about her wealthy, much older husband and all the great places he took her. When Buffy admitted she was single, she'd gotten a bad excuse then the line had gone dead without so much as a 'bye'.  
  
Her other best friend there, Jennifer Walkens, turned out to have been killed in a car crash two weeks after her high school graduation along with three other recent graduates. It was tragic, but she felt surprisingly little emotion.  
  
"Have you managed to reconnect with anyone from back then?"  
  
"No, most of them look down on me for the gym-thing. Or because I've never been married, engaged, or dated anyone rich, famous, or at least important in some way. I'm 37, not dead. And I'm not defined by any man."  
  
It was Kensi's turn to look amused. "It used to be your goal in life to marry someone rich or famous, so you could spend all of his money and not work."  
  
Buffy grimaced. "Don't remind me. My dreams and expectations for life when I was attending Hemery was... low. And stupid. Moving to Sunnydale made me grow up and understand that if I want something done I need to do it myself."  
  
Kensi nodded, then asked. "What 'gym-thing'? And isn't Sunnydale the town that collapsed into a sinkhole 15 years ago?"  
  
"Um..." Buffy hedged. "No one told you about why I changed schools during my sophomore year?" The brunette shook her head. "Um, right. Someone began killing students a while after you dropped out, it kept getting worse. Then, at a school dance, a group of weirdoes attacked it. I tried to fight back, but there were too many of them. Somehow the gym caught on fire and I was blamed for it. The Principal gave me the option to either accept an expulsion or he'd make sure I was charged."   
  
It all came out in a jumbled mess, but it hit on most of the pertinent, non-vampire facts. Kensi kind of just stared at her. "You burnt down the gym?"  
  
"Of course not!" It really had been an accident, mostly. Until it proved to be effective against Lothos and his minions then she had literally fanned the fire. It wasn't her fault that party decorations were so flammable.  
  
"And yes, Sunnydale disappeared into a sinkhole along with my house and most of my possessions in 2003." She tucked a stray lock behind her ear. "But let's not dig up the ugly past. Tell me some happy news."  
  
As a distraction, it was a bad one, but Kensi let it go and began telling her about how she got engaged to her boyfriend. It was for the most part a happier and much more entertaining story than she expected. Even if Kensi was obviously editing out some classified information a few times. Still, Deeks sounded like a perfect match for her and she obviously loved him.  
  
They split not long after as she had a patrol/not-date with Angel and needed to do some shopping first.


	3. Research

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Day 09 of the 2020 AFaD. 
> 
> Disclaimer: Nothing copyrighted belongs to yours truly.

The first thing Kensi had done after getting home from her lunch with Buffy was to boot up her private laptop and do a quick search for Hemery High School and a string of murders in the mid-1990s. The search result quickly confirmed what Buffy had already told her; someone had been killing students for several months and all of them had attended Hemery. There were also several articles on the school dance, with the main headlines screaming about a gang attacking it and killing and wounding many students. Pictures of the burning gym were also available along with snaps of the remains after the fire had been put out. 

The name 'Buffy Summers' wasn't anywhere in any of the articles, which probably explained why Nell and Eric hadn't flagged it. Or maybe not, they did now she had been expelled shortly after. With no proof, there wasn't much they could do about it. 

It was more difficult to find anything on Sunnydale. Online newspapers weren't quite as common back then as it was now, and they didn't appear to have been at the forefront of news broadcasting. No one appeared to have bothered to upload past issues for research reasons either. That most likely meant either nothing ever happened there, all copies had been lost in the collapse, or someone had a lot to hide. Given the circumstances, she was putting her money on the latter. 

A more general search for the town gave her many memorial websites in memory of people who had been killed or gone missing there. The number was staggering. As she sifted through them a disturbing pattern came to light. Several of the websites said the Class of '99, Buffy's graduating class, had the lowest mortality rate in the history of Sunnydale High, despite an explosion during the ceremony killing nearly half of the students and many others. 

Further research told her the death rate among the students had begun going down shortly after Buffy moved there in 1997. That had to be a coincidence, right? 

A search using Buffy's name leads her to the official website for the International Defender's Council, but no social media websites. If she had any, they were private or under a false name. There were also a few official statements pertaining to local cases the IDC had taken jurisdiction over, but nothing that helped her research. 

She would've preferred if the Meerkats could've done more deep searches, but with the C&D she was probably pushing it with the few searches she had already done. Hopefully, there would be no consequences. 

By all public accounts, her old school acquaintance was an upstanding citizen with no criminal record. 

She had just closed all the tabs along with the private browsing window, and pushed the screen down, when she heard the front door open, and a loud familiar voice called out, "Honey, I'm home!" Kensi smiled and went to greet her fiance as she let his voice flow around her. 

Everything would be fine. Buffy wasn't a member of the mafia, a serial killer, or some other criminal like Deeks had suggested earlier. She was just someone Kensi went to school with a long time ago, someone who wanted to go to lunch with her when she was in LA. She could do that. Right?


	4. Discourse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: BtVS: Post-Chosen & NCIS: LA: S10. (10x01: To Live & Die in Mexico).  
> Disclaimer: Nothing copyrighted belongs to yours truly.  
> Author's Note: Written for Day 19 of the 2020 August Fic-A-Day.

"I'm sorry about the loss of your teammate."  
  
It had been months since Buffy and Kensi had been able to meet up. Cases, personal things, and the supernatural had kept Buffy away from LA for close to six months. There had been a few phone calls, mainly just to say 'hello', but no face to face meetings.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"How's your fiance and your other teammates?"  
  
Kensi closed her eyes for a moment, "Do I even want to know how you got access to that information?"  
  
Buffy smiled. "My organization is pretty powerful and influential, but to be honest, I'm not entirely sure why I got it. I had to ask around when I began receiving some very short and dry reports from your cases once a month since I didn't recognize the sender." She reviewed what little she knew. "That particular case got a lot of attention though. Those high up doesn't usually go rogue, drag their teams into it, and then kill their baby daddy."  
  
Kensi's eyes widened, but then she just shook her head and decided to let it go. She could see Kensi's thought process on her face, including when she decided it would be pointless to ask what she wanted to know. "Deeks is doing good, he's been back at work for a few weeks. Same with Sam. Callen just got cleared for active duty."  
  
"That's good." Buffy's smile was genuine. Team Kensi was by all accounts a tight one, she was lucky like that. Her former best friends were trying to hide behind a veneer of a friendship that was barely there anymore. Truthfully, she had more honest conversations with Faith than Willow and Xander. It hurt.  
  
"To steal your line to move on from a bad subject; What's new with you?"  
  
"I have a new boyfriend. It's pretty new so we'll see where it goes." She had run every check she could on him, and even got one of their tech people, a woman she got along with fairly well, to do a thorough background check, and he had come up clean. A few strange things, but nothing that couldn't be rationalized away by a good explanation. Hopefully. He was even fully human, much to most people's surprise.  
  
Kensi gave an exaggerated wag of her eyebrows, "Do tell! And what about the mysterious ex you've been kissing on when you've been here?"  
  
"No kissing the sexy ex when I have a current beau." It didn't matter how tempting it was, either. She loved Angel and he loved her, but they both knew it wasn't going anywhere. It couldn't.  
  
"And what about Mr. Maybe? What's his name? What does he do?" Kensi was leaning forward a little, curiosity alight in her brown eyes.  
  
"Dr. Maybe's name is Daniel and he's an archeologist." When Giles had heard the name of her new boyfriend, he'd gotten excited and tried to convince her to talk him into joining the Defender's Council as a researcher. She wasn't so sure it was a good idea.  
  
Kensi nodded, "A good, solid profession if he has either good funding/grants or works as a teacher somewhere."   
  
"We haven't gotten to the financial deep dive yet, so I'm not entirely sure." Her friend's snooping had revealed he had been employed by the Air Force at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex for years, but who knew why they needed an archeologist/linguist. "Right now we're just going on dates and trying to get to know each other when we're both at the same place at the same time."  
  
"Still doing a lot of traveling then?"  
  
"Yes, I can't decide if I love it or if I never want to get on an airplane ever again." She laughed a little. "Seeing so much of America and Europe is fun, but I don't always get a lot of time in each place. So it's often; plane, airport, hotel, meeting place, other work-related places, meeting place, hotel, airport, plane. Repeat. Not much sight-seeing or sampling the local cuisine."  
  
"I wish I got to travel more." Buffy winced at the second word, but her sort-of friend misunderstood. "Not like my last trip out of the country," she hastened to add. "But a vacation with Deeks or my friends to somewhere fun and relaxing."  
  
"A sunny vacation does sound good." It did. When she got time off it was usually only for a few days at the most and then it was back to Slaying vamps, or stopping something or other. Or fielding calls from whoever.  
  
And speaking of which, her phone rang. She gave the display a cursory look to find out who it was and if she needed to answer. The name in the small display was one of the Watchers currently studying a possible apocalypse. It prompted her to apologetically say, "I need to take this. Excuse me."  
  
Soon after she was apologizing to Kensi again for having to leave, and then she was power-walking to her rental car.


	5. Caught

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Written for Day 24 of the 2020 August Fic-A-Day.  
> A/N: Blah.

"Why is it impossible to find any online newspapers from Sunnydale? Even with the collapse, there should've been something."

"Ummm..." Buffy hedged. The truth was that a lot of the things that could've told anyone what had happened in Sunnydale had gone poof when the Hellmouth was closed. It wasn't just online newspapers, but police records, the morgues Willow had regularly hacked into, and so on had also disappeared off the net. No one had been able to explain why or how, but it had frustrated Willow a lot.

"That's a question a lot of people would like the answer to."

Kensi looked her straight in the eye. "Do you or any of your people know the answer, or have a workable theory?"

"Some of my people have been searching for the reason, but no one has been able to find anything concrete. They have theories, classified ones, but that's all." A demonic failsafe set up by Richard Wilkins was the leading theory, but they had been unable to prove it. Buffy didn't care either way, except when someone asked her about it, mainly because it was more weirdness she had to lie about.

A pointed look made her confess, "No, Kensi, I don't know what happened to the Sunnydale-based websites or why they disappeared. I'm not the most tech-savvy person out there."

"But you have to have a few guesses. Crimes, bribery, corruption?"

"All of the above. The Sunnydale PD was almost entirely corrupt and regularly turned a blind eye to anything they didn't want to deal with. The politicians were the same. But I don't think any of them are capable of erasing that much without leaving a trace."

Buffy was about to say something else when she spotted someone semi-familiar. "Your beau's here and he doesn't look happy with you."

Kensi turned and followed Buffy's line of sight and met her fiance's upset eyes. "Shit," she murmured low enough that the Slayer felt comfortable pretending she didn't hear it.

"Is that anger because of me or is there trouble in paradise? Because if it's me, I'll take full responsibility."

"I'm sure it's because I didn't tell him I'm still in contact with you," Kensi replied. "That makes it my fault, not yours." Then she got quiet as the man came within hearing distance. Both of them watched him close the remaining distance.

"You said you wouldn't couldn't her again. What happened?" He was clearly suppressing the need to say something else.

"I changed my mind right before her deadline was up. We've been in contact ever since." Kensi on the other hand had gone on the defensive.

Buffy had sat back and chose to just watch for the time being. The back and forth went on for a few minutes before she decided it was time to interject.

"I'm not Cruella de Vil, Detective Deeks, and I would appreciate it if you stopped treating me as if I am going to harm Kensi."

He just looked at her with barely restrained hostility for a moment. "Prove it."

"How?"

"I don't know! But there's never anything good behind organizations with little public information. The stunt you pulled just proves my point."

"My organization is classified for good reason. All of my meetings with Kensi have happened in public places, if it worries you so much then I'm sure those two hackers OSP employ can find the footage if Kensi gives them the time and places we met. Searching for that won't violate the Cease and Desist the IDC issued you."

Deek's eyes widened, but before he got the chance to add his two cents she said, "And it wasn't my idea, it was our lawyers who insisted. The NCIS Office of Special Projects has a reputation of not backing off without heavy threats. They tried to do it the gentle way, but your reputation was right and so we had to use the big guns."

She hadn't been happy about it, no matter what anyone might've thought. The former Scooby Gang had all tried to talk her out of keeping in contact with her former classmate. Well, Faith hadn't cared at all. Just asked if she wanted to go dust a kiss of vampires with her when she'd looked like she wanted to take a swing at some of them, and that had been it.

"All Kensi and I have done is talk, mostly about shallow subjects. She's tried to fish for information about the IDC and Sunnydale, mostly just ending up with more questions than when she began. I haven't threatened her, you, or anyone else in NCIS. I haven't bribed anyone, blackmailed anyone, asked for classified information, or done anything else illegal. So I'd appreciate it if you calmed down.

"You don't have to like me, but stop treating me like a violent criminal who's three seconds away from causing a massive bloodbath. And don't blame this," she indicated herself, Kensi, and the lunch they'd shared, "on her either. I was the one who reached out and kept trying."

She stopped talking, mainly as she wasn't certain what else to say or if she was just digging herself another grave. Technically she was a criminal and causing demonic bloodbaths was kind of a specialty of hers. She would never do it to humans though.

The two of them got into a staring contest, him with angry eyes and her just meeting his eyes head-on. Eventually, Kensi had enough and grabbed her man by the arm and informed him they were leaving.

"I'm sorry about this, Buffy. I'll call you."

They said their goodbyes and she pretended not to hear Deeks' grumblings about her.


	6. Beachside Discourse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: BtVS: Post-Chosen & NCIS: LA: S10.  
> Disclaimer: Nothing copyrighted belongs to yours truly.  
> Author's Note: Written for Day 26 of the 2020 August Fic-A-Day.
> 
> A/N: I've done some handwaving at both the timeline and certain implied canon from 'Chosen'. Mainly because I can't find the years Deeks practiced law, but then it's unlikely to have lined up with my wriggly timeline. So, yeah.

Three days after her latest meeting with her sort-of friend, Kensi Blye she was on the beach watching Kensi's fiance surf. Detective Martin Deeks really, really disliked her, and despite the verbal onslaught, she didn't think it was personal. More like, there was something more behind his behavior and she wanted to know what it was and why he insisted on taking it out on her.  
  
By the time he came out of the water, she had been there for an hour. He'd seen her about 20 minutes prior but had chosen to ignore her. Regardless, he couldn't stay out on the waves forever. Despite the warm weather, it was cold in the ocean, and he needed to warm up before potentially going out again.  
  
The glare he pierced her with was visible even to the people who were just catching some rays or lounging around doing whatever. They shied away from the bad mood, clearly hoping it wouldn't affect them. Or in some cases, hoping for a show.   
  
"What are you doing here?" He asked as he came within normal hearing range. When he was close enough he hovered over her with his board in one hand and dripping water everywhere.  
  
"We need to clear the air, just you and I. All this misdirected anger has to come from somewhere, and since I'm sure I haven't done anything to cause it there has to be another reason. Something you discovered in between your team getting the C&D and the next time we met after that."  
  
Deeks narrowed his eyes at her, "You know exactly why! Don't play stupid!"  
  
Buffy rose from the sand and took her beach towel and bag with her. "Let's get somewhere more comfortable and then you can explain to me what you think I know, and why."  
  
He gave a non-verbal reply and they walked off the sandy part of the beach and upon a slightly raised platform with tables and benches on it, and perhaps more importantly, a sunshade. Deeks stuck his surfboard in the sand and sat on of the benches, while Buffy took the other side. They had chosen the one furthest away from any other people so their conversation could remain at least semi-private.  
  
"You know why, you're one of them." The glare was back again.  
  
"Detective Deeks." She said before he got any further. "I don't know what your problem is, but if you explain it to me then maybe I can help or at least give you my side of it."  
  
Another thought crossed his face and he asked, "How did you know I was here?"  
  
"That's easy enough to answer. Kensi called me as she promised. We talked, and she suggested you and I talk it out. Then she told me you'd be here today."  
  
He frowned but accepted her reply without commenting. "You're a member of the Watcher's Council because that's what the International Defender's Council used to be called. You're a group of kidnappers, using children and teens for god knows what."  
  
"Ah, crap." Buffy exhaled eloquently. Well, that did explain his anger towards her and the IDC in general. Which meant his anger was probably warranted. "Who did you lose? A sister? Cousin? Daughter? A female friend?"  
  
Deeks' attitude intensified. "For someone claiming not to know, you look unsurprised."  
  
"I don't know about your specific case, but there are a lot of those. But before you ask, no, I can't tell you why the old Council kidnapped young girls, other than it's not what you think."  
  
"It's not what I think? There are only so many reasons why a group of old men kidnaps children and teenage girls, Summers! If it's not what it looks like, then what is the reason?"  
  
How was she supposed to explain that without telling him the kidnapped girls were Potential Slayers, whom the old Council wanted to isolate and train to make sure they were loyal to the Watcher's Council and only them? Especially since he didn't seem inclined to give her any leeway at all.  
  
"I can't tell you." He glared angrily at her from across the small, square table. "Even if I was allowed to tell you, it wouldn't help. It would just raise more questions and the answers aren't something you want to know about."  
  
Then she repeated her earlier question, "Who did you lose?"  
  
"It wasn't a personal loss." He finally admitted. "I worked as a public defender before I joined the LAPD, and one of the cases I handled was a young couple who broke into the home of a member of the Watcher's Council after their daughter went missing. He had visited them several times, attempting to get them to legally hand her over and give him custody, but they refused. They were poor but loved their only child. When they reported their child missing he became the main suspect, but the police were unable to do anything because he had diplomatic immunity."  
  
"I am sorry to hear that, but I assure you, with the change of name came a change of leadership and how we operate. One of the things we changed was kidnapping children and teenagers. It's no longer part of what we do, and it never should've been." Those cases were just one of the many where the Old Council's way was causing them problems long after most of the bastards were dead and gone.  
  
"If you give me her name, date of birth, and when she went missing I'll see if I can find out what happened to her."  
  
Some of the anger left him, but not all. It was replaced by suspicion. "You're going to tell me that? Just like that? No threats, no legal hurdles? Nothing?"  
  
"I, we, are not the Old Council and we certainly don't operate the way they did. If what it takes is getting you this information then, sure. I'll get it."  
  
"You're talking about her as if she's dead."  
  
Buffy looked out towards the ocean and its waves for a few moments, just gathering her thoughts. "In all probability, she has been dead for years. Most of the girls they took are." In between the girls getting 'too old', the Bringers killing off the Potentials in the early 2000s, and being Called by Willow's spell and then killed, there wasn't much hope.  
  
"Her name is Carol Connelly, she was born on June 5th, 1994, and she went missing on November 30th, 2001."  
  
It meant she was nine in 2003, or more likely eight, too young to have been Chosen, but if she was still alive in 2007 when she turned 13 she would've received the Slayer powers. Still, the likelihood of her surviving 11 years after that was small, even with a large number of Slayers worldwide. The average lifespan was four years.  
  
Buffy spent a few minutes rummaging around in her cute beach bag before she located her phone. Once she had it in her hands she typed in the information she'd been given along with a note to herself before she sent the email to her work address. She'd meant what she told Deeks, whatever she found would probably be dry reports followed by the basic stats of the girl's demise. If she'd been alive when the Scoobies took over then her life might've been good for a while, but there were always those who fell through the cracks.  
  
She put the phone back in her bag and looked at the surfer across from her, "Just to be clear, this girl's disappearance is the reason why you've been so hostile towards me. You think I run around and do the same thing that happened to her."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Getting you this information won't change your mind about me or the IDC."  
  
"No."   
  
"Right," she sighed. "It was worth a try, but I'll see what I can find regardless."  
  
Buffy placed the handles of her bag over her shoulder and got up. "It's been unpleasant, but I have an elsewhere to be." She walked a few steps away before turning back. "I'll be in touch when I get the information."  
  
Then she added, more as an afterthought. "Tell Kensi I said hi and that I tried."  
  
Then she walked back to her car. Deeks would reconsider or he wouldn't. There were a lot of people in situations like his, people who had either known or been related to Potentials and Slayers who had been taken by the Council to never be seen or heard from again. She understood the anger now, but it wasn't her fault.


	7. Lost Girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Written for Day 31 of the 2020 August Fic-A-Day.  
> A/N: It's a wrap! Thank you to the Mods for running this again this year despite the pandemic, and thank you to all my fellow authors and all those who have taken the time to write reviews. You're all awesome!

Over the next few months, Buffy attempted to find any information in regards to a Potential Slayer named Carol Connelly who had been kidnapped by the Old Council in late 2001. It quickly proved to be easier said than done. Mainly because there was no evidence of any Slayers or Potential Slayers with that name. There had been about half a dozen named Carol, and a couple with the last name Connelly, but none with both names.  
  
She was a busy woman and traveled quite a lot both for professional and personal reasons. It didn't leave her with a lot of time to do research, especially not for something unrelated to her work. She could've asked someone in the IDC to get the information for her, but an unidentified feeling made her do it herself.  
  
The first thing she had done was do some research on Martin Deeks so she could get more information on where the Connelly's had lived. From there she crosschecked that with any Council members who had been in that specific part of Los Angeles in late November and early December of that year. It got her the name of the Watcher, but it was a dead end. The man had only been a go-between and had most likely only taken the girl and then handed her over to someone else within the hour.  
  
The Watcher in question had also been one of those who had been killed by the Bringers in 2003, so there was no chance of asking him any questions. His Watcher's Diaries had burned along with his house, so there was no help there either.  
  
Next on her list was the names and pictures of all the Potentials who had been killed by the Bringers. There were no matches. She got the same result when she searched through all the dead Potentials in the IDC database from the year 2000 and up to the present. No dead Slayers were matching her name or description either.  
  
Which meant this girl might be alive but under a different name. Depending on how she had been trained, they might have simply changed her name and then somehow convinced her that her new name was her real name. It had happened before, especially if the parents or relatives of the girl in question refused to give up searching for the missing girl.  
  
There were about 500 Slayers left worldwide. In 2003 there had been approximately 2,000, but in between demons, vampires, overconfidence, mistakes, and accidents, the number had gone down. New Slayers were activated every year, but the number became lower and lower and it wasn't because of a lack of Potentials.  
  
The balance was righting itself and it was only a matter of time before they were back to the Chosen *One*.  
  
However, if Carol turned 13 in 2007 then she would've received the power, as it didn't begin skipping Potentials until the year after. Or at least, that's when it began as far as they knew. No one had noticed until 2010 when an odd number of girls didn't manifest by the time they were 15.  
  
It wasn't that strange if it skipped a few, on rare occasions they got a false read and a completely normal girl was read into the supernatural world. When it happened she was given a choice on how to move forward and where, and then they went from there.  
  
Still, several thousand photographs were a lot to go through and study when she had so little spare time. It made her annoyed they hadn't invested in face recognition software, but few people saw it as a useful way to spend their money. It didn't help that most of these girls had no interest in finding their biological family, only to tell them they were likely to die soon.  
  
She also wanted to spend time with Daniel when she had some time off. Their relationship had progressed enough that she had met his team, including his best friend, a very sarcastic and laid-back general named Jack. Military people weren't her people, but by the looks of it, these were on the up and up. Still, she was tempted to see if she could get clearance to whatever top-secret program he was working for under the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. Daniel was too tanned and muscular for it to be just translations.  
  
Daniel had been introduced to Dawn and Faith, but no one else. Willow and Xander hadn't been speaking to her much for the last few months and Giles was... Well, she didn't want Giles to try and recruit him. That only left her little sister and her sister-Slayer to meet and give her new man their equivalent of the shovel talk.  
  
As she was once again staring at picture after picture, and occasionally looking closer on some girl's stats to see if they matched, her phone rang. Without looking at the display, she automatically replied with a half-absent, "Summers."  
  
"Hey! Are you busy?" Buffy blinked and moved her phone a little away from her ear so she could glance at the display, it read, as she thought, 'Kensi Blye [NCIS OSP]'.  
  
"Hey. Yes, I'm busy but a break would be of the good right now." She swung her office chair around and closed her eyes. Staring at a screen for hours on end wasn't something she enjoyed doing. And all the girls and women were beginning to look alike.  
  
"Anything you can share or is it super-secret squirrel stuff?" That startled a short laugh out of Buffy before she replied.  
  
"I'm staring at a computer screen trying to figure out if one of them is Carol Connelly or some other girl whose family is missing her."  
  
"Finding one girl shouldn't take this long. A simple search should've given you the answer in seconds or a few hours at the most if it's a large database."  
  
"It should," Buffy sighed. "But I'm lucky I don't have to look through hard copies. The Old Council did not believe in technology. I don't know why, but when I eventually find her I'm going to get our computer people to make a real, functional search engine because the current one isn't doing the job."  
  
Anything new from when they took over was digitized and easily found with a basic search engine, but it didn't include personal files for past or present people, and without knowing what name they had given her it was pointless. They needed a search engine that allowed them to search by including and excluding certain groups. I.e. Slayers, Potential Slayers, Witches, Demons, Vampires, alive, dead, undead, missing, missing presumed dead, D.O.B, date/year of Calling, and so on.  
  
"Have you made any headway at all, or are you searching blind?"  
  
"That's one of the few things they've managed. Dead girls in one place and living ones in another. Unless I've completely managed to not recognize her, it looks like there's a good chance Carol is alive. Don't tell your husband that though, just in case I'm wrong."  
  
"Duly noted. I'll tell him the search is tedious but you're working on it."  
  
Then a ruckus of some kind broke out several rooms down the hallway and she sighed again. Being at their Headquarters in Cleveland was just one problem after another. She honestly had no idea how anyone there got stuff done.  
  
"I appreciate it, but he'll probably just assume it's an excuse. I have to go, but I'll call when I finally have something."  
  
They said their goodbyes and she went to check on the latest problem.  
  
\----  
  
It took another month before she finally found the young woman, only to realize that she was one of the two Slayers permanently stationed on a minor Hellmouth in Russia. Then it took another two weeks to get her to L.A. after arranging for someone else to take over her duties, at least temporarily.   
  
Still, she persevered. All they had to do now was wait for Kensi and Deeks to show up, do a cheek swab of Alana so they could confirm she was really who they thought she was, and hopefully she hadn't made a false positive match. Whatever the Council had done to her it had left her with no memory of her life before she came to live with her first Watcher.  
  
If Alana Hill truly was Carol Connelly then her parents would be contacted and the IDC would set up a reunion, but it didn't mean it would be a happy one. Alana, as she insisted they call her, was one of the Slayers who had chosen not to try and get in contact with their family. Instead, she was one of the Slayers who had opted for their family to be contacted after their death.  
  
They were at a beach again, having declined to use what Kensi had referred to as the 'Boatshed', but it was overcast so there were fewer people than normal. It gave them privacy for the upcoming conversation. Buffy was 97% certain she had found the right woman, but in a few days, she would know for certain.


End file.
